The horse shifted under his touch, warm and blessedly uncomplicated. He reached for the reins, the familiar leather grounding him far more effectively than anything inside the house had. The horse shifted under his touch.
Rowan mounted in one smooth motion.
For a moment, he sat there, feeling her mouth against his, hearing the soft way she had said his name.
He shut it down. His heel pressed into the horse’s flank.
The animal surged forward, and Rowan let it take him, riding hard down the drive, away from the house, away from the closed door, away from the woman who had nearly undone him in a single night.
By the time the wind tore against his face and the land opened before him, there was nothing left in his mind but distance and the tenants he had to see.
And he held on to it like salvation.
“You have a great many portraits for a house that seems determined not to speak.”
The housekeeper, Mrs. Vale, paused halfway across the gallery and turned with the careful expression of a woman deciding whether her new mistress had made a joke.
Emmeline glanced up at the row of painted Huntleys lining the long wall, their faces stern beneath powdered wigs, dark coats, pearls, lace, and the unblinking arrogance of generations who had never once wondered whether they belonged anywhere. Morning light poured through the tall windows, catching the gilt frames and making each severe mouth seem thinner.
She lifted one brow. “Do they always look so displeased, or have I offended them already?”
Mrs. Vale’s mouth twitched before she mastered it. “The late duke was said to prefer solemn portraiture, Your Grace.”
“How fortunate for him that his descendants complied.”
This time the housekeeper did smile, though only slightly. “They were a serious family.”
Emmeline looked at the portraits again, feeling the strange pull of curiosity and discomfort at their cold, hard eyes.
She had risen that morning with her body still aching from lack of sleep and memory, expecting, foolishly perhaps, some trace of Rowan in the corridors, some accidental encounter that would force last night into the open.
Instead, she had been told by a footman, with careful politeness, that His Grace had left the house at dawn to see to his tenants.
Before breakfast. Before he could risk seeing her.
The humiliation had burned, then sharpened into a jagged heat, but both were eclipsed by the phantom pressure of his mouth. Her skin still prickled where his hand had gripped her neck, and the memory of his body shuddering at her whisper felt like a brand.
Emmeline pivoted away from the unblinking eyes of the portraits.
“The music room?”
“Beyond the east drawing room, Your Grace.”
“And the library?”
Mrs. Vale’s mouth softened by a hair. “The finest room in the house.”
“Then show me.”
Ironford Hall seemed built from discipline as much as stone. The furniture stood in military formation, and the piano in the music room was a mirror of untouched, still water. Every “Your Grace” from a bowing servant made the title settle heavier around her shoulders.
When the library doors swung open, the air changed. The scent of leather and old paper rose to meet her, smelling of beeswax and sunlight. Golden bars of morning light stretched across the carpet, and the towering shelves didn’t seem to judge her.
A rustle came from the far window.
Tucked into a massive leather chair, a small leg swung in a restless arc. Aaron sat with a book spread across his knees, his wooden horse propped against the armrest, ears cocked as if listening for the next word.
He looked up at once. “D-Duchess.”
